Activity 10 Task 1 – Supporting social collaboration

Whilst L&Ds role up to now has traditionally been about organising and managing learning interventions, these have usually been content-driven. Now with the advent of social tools, the buzzword in L&D is around social learning. Although for some this has meant social e-learning, the real social learning takes place as a consequence of people working together – using social tools, which is what I refer to as social collaboration.

So what part can L&D play here? Well it is likely to be a very different one. It’ll be about building and supporting social work teams as well as cross-organisational communities of practice. This work will involve

helping a group to share – see mini-chapter 46 for more on this

helping a group to work out loud – see mini-chapter 47 for more on this

helping a team to make good use of the ESN – see mini-chapter 49 for more on this

taking on or supporting the role of a community manager – see mini-chapter 50 for more on this

How might you and your L&D team help to build and support social teams and communities in order to enable and optimise the real social learning to take place in your organisation? What are the implications for the L&D team?

In a new Learning Log entry, document your thoughts on these questions.